Chilean's round-the-world record cycling quest ends in death on Thai highway

Guillermo, from Chile, had set off on his world recording breaking bike trip in 2010 with the target of cycling 250,000Km over 5 years.

Juan Francisco Guillermo, who was trying to cycle 250,000km in five years, was killed after being hit by truck in north-east Thailand, police said

A Chilean cyclist’s attempt to set a record for biking around the world has ended with his death in a road accident in northeast Thailand, police said on Sunday.

Juan Francisco Guillermo, 47, was hit by a pickup truck and immediately killed Saturday on a highway in Nakhon Ratchasima province.


According to police and accounts on social media, Guillermo was attempting to set a Guinness world record by cycling 250,000km (155,350 miles) on five continents in five years. His journey started in November 2010 and was scheduled to end in November this year.

Guillermo’s wife was on another bicycle with their two-year-old son and suffered a slight sprain in the accident, said police Col Torsak Thammingmongkol. It was not clear how long they had accompanied Guillermo in his round-the-world cycling odyssey.

The driver of the pickup truck was arrested on a charge of causing death by dangerous driving and released on bail, said Torsak. The offense carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

“It was an accident caused by the driver’s recklessness. The road was straight and the cyclist was in his own lane,” the officer said.

The death comes as Thailand’s government is trying hard to promote bicycling for commuting, sport and tourism.

In February 2013, a British couple on a similar round-the-world quest was killed in a road accident in eastern Thailand.

Source: The Guardian

Read More

ISIS overtakes Iraq's largest Christian city

Many of the Iraqi Christians who fled the violence have arrived in the Kurdish city of Erbil

Iraq's largest Christian town has been overrun by the same militant Islamists who have gained a foothold in parts of eastern Syria and western and northern Iraq.

The latest advance by ISIS (or the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) has caused thousands of Christians in the city to flee, just as other minority groups targeted by ISIS have done, as well as Shiite Muslims.

The French government confirmed that the Iraqi city of Qaraqosh has fallen into the hands of the militant al Qaeda offshoot.

"France is highly concerned about the latest progress of ISIS in the North of Iraq and by the taking of Qaraqosh, the largest Christian city of Iraq, and the horrible acts of violence that are committed," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement.

France called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the threat in Iraq.

The exodus from Qaraqosh was already under way, as the city and its surroundings have been the target of ISIS attacks for weeks.

When ISIS took over Mosul, many residents from there had fled to Qaraqosh. In Mosul, ISIS issued an ultimatum to Christians living there: Convert to Islam, pay a fine or face "death by the sword."

Three other nearby villages were also attacked overnight and Thursday, local police officials told CNN. Two of the villages -- Bartella and Tall Kayf -- are predominately Christian. Hundreds of Christian families fled to the north, police said.

The third village is Hamadaniya.

Kurdish forces were involved in heavy clashes protecting the area from ISIS.

ISIS seeks to create an Islamic caliphate that stretches from Syria to Iraq. The group has aggressively targeted Iraqi minority religious groups.

Nickolay Mladenov, the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Iraq, last month condemned the persecution of Christians, Shia Muslims and Yazidis, as well as the Shabak and Turkmen ethnic minorities.

The Pentagon is considering conducting emergency air drops to the thousands of stranded Yazidis in northern Iraq, a U.S. Defense official told CNN Thursday.

A spokesman for Pope Francis, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said on Thursday that the pontiff is deeply concerned about the reports coming from northern Iraq.

"Christian communities are particularly affected: a people fleeing from their villages because of the violence that rages in these days, wreaking havoc on the entire region," Lombardi said in a statement.

Lombardi quoted a prayer the Pope offered last month, expressing to the persecuted that "I know how much you suffer, I know that you are deprived of everything."

Most Iraqi Christians are Chaldeans, who are Roman Catholic communicants.

Source: CNN

Read More

WATCH: New ISIS video shows Kurdish soldiers paraded in cages

Watch video at the bottom of the article.

Islamic State (ISIS) militants released new footage Saturday that allegedly shows 21 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters being paraded through crowded streets in the embattled Iraqi province of Kirkuk.

The beginning of the footage shows several men in cages being interviewed by an Islamic State militant holding a microphone with the group's insignia, before cutting to clips of several trucks with cages in the back being driven through cheering crowds. It is unclear where in the Kirkuk province this footage may have been taken or when it was recorded.

ISIS and the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have been locked in a series of tense battles for control of the province since January.
  The scene shown in the video echoes of an earlier execution the group carried out on Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh who was burned alive by ISIS militants while locked in a cage.

Images showing ISIS fighters parading Peshmerga fighters around a crowded street had also circulated earlier in February, so it is unclear when this newly released video was taken. Other video taken from the crowd shows similar scenes.

The footage may have been taken in the town of Hawija, located southwest of the city of Kirkuk, based on information from local Kurdish media and distinctive landmarks seen in the new video.

On Feb. 19, another ISIS-affiliated account posted a video claiming to show a raid against Peshmerga positions in Kirkuk.

Kirkuk, located along the border of Kurdish northern Iraq and the rest of the country, is home to Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, and all have competing claims to the area.

Kurdish forces claimed control of the city just days after the Islamic State group seized northern Iraqi cities including Mosul and Tikrit.

Holding onto Kirkuk has not been easy. Last month, ISIS fighters — aided by what the Kurds say was a Sunni sleeper cell in the city — stormed an abandoned Kirkuk hotel, and then staged a surprise attack on a Peshmerga outpost, killing a top commander and several of his troops.





   

Read More

Russian bombers intercepted near British airspace

RAF Typhoon fighter jets were scrambled on Wednesday after two long-range TU-95 “Bear” bombers were detected flying over the English Channel.

The incident was last night described as “yet another in a series of deliberately provocative” measures by President Vladimir Putin which confirmed that Nato’s status had moved firmly from “rival to adversary”.

Sources within the Ministry of Defence last night revealed that one of the two long-range bombers was carrying at least one air-dropped “seek and find"d nuclear warhead-carrtying missile, designed to seek and destroy a Vanguard submarine.
Both Prime Minister David Cameron and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon were alerted after cockpit conservations confirming the bomber’s nuclear payload were intercepted by a Norwegian military listening post, and shared with the Ministry of Defence.

The missile was not armed, and the aircraft's crew would have required a direct order from President Putin before making it live.

The other bomber was said to have been acting in the role of “mothership”, overseeing the military exercise.

One senior RAF source said:  “We downloaded conversations from the crew of one plane who used a special word which meant the would-be attack was a training exercise.

"They know that we can pick up their transmissions and it would only be of concern if the often used release weapon order was changed.

"We also knew from another source that one of the aircraft was carrying a nuclear weapon long before it came anywhere near UK airspace.”

The Russian bomber was intercepted just outside of British airspace

On Friday Russia’s ambassador in London, Alexander Yakovenko, was summoned to account for the incident, which some experts suggest was deliberately timed to coincide with the launch of the official inquiry into the murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

The former KGB agent, who fled to Britain to become one of the Kremlin's most vocal critics, died from radiation poisoning in 2006 after drinking tea laced with polonium.

Last week’s security scare was branded an “escalation” of Russian aggression because Russian bombers do not usually fly so far south of Scotland, and happened a month after Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Britain was concerned about the "extremely aggressive probing" of its airspace by Russia.

More than 100 Russian aircraft were intercepted over the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean by Nato allies last year, three times more than during 2013. Eight of those flights were over Britain.

During the Cold War it was common practice for Soviet military aircraft to carry nuclear weapons, though the practise ended following the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, it was recently resumed by Moscow.

Experts said the latest manoeuvres showed Russia was “upping its game”.

“This continual and increasing probing of Nato airspace by these nuclear bombers and fighter aircraft, tankers and electronic aircraft by Russian is a pattern of increased pressure by Russia designed to remind the West and Nato that they remain a large nuclear power, and a serious military power with reach,” said Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute, last night.

"Russia now clearly perceives Nato not as a potential threat, but as an adversary.

“But this intimidation belies a misunderstanding of the way the West works. As far as our military is concerned, it is helpful for Putin to be stepping up these actions. It serves to remind the public at a time where defence budgets are under pressure that this threat is still real, active and is not going away.”

Air Cmdre Andrew Lambert, of the UK National Defence Association and formerly a leading air power strategist, said: “Putin is making the point that he has nuclear weapons and will carry them wherever he wants and Nato just has to take it.

“We have reduced the number of or Typhoon squadrons to the bare minimum. They have the Quick Reaction Alert commitments, Nato’s Baltic effort, and of course, the Falklands. So we are stretched three ways. We have too few air defence aircraft bearing in mind the commitments we now have.

“When the next round of defend cuts are discussed, it must be realised that we must have enough F-35s so that the our Typhoons can concentrate on their primary role – the air defence of this country.”

Source: Express

Read More

It's official: Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao to fight on May 2

The fight is on as Pacquiao and Mayweather will fight May 2. (Getty Images)

After weeks of speculation, it's finally done. Floyd Mayweather confirmed what had been rumored, that and he will fight Manny Pacquiao. The two will fight on May 2 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas with a reported purse of over $100 million.


Mayweather made the fight official by posting the contract on the shots app.

Pacquiao is happy the two will finally square off.

"I am very happy that Mayweather and I can give the fans the fight they have wanted for so many years," said Pacquiao, who signed the contract for the bout Thursday, according to Yahoo Sports. "They have waited long enough and they deserve it. It is an honor to be part of this historic event. I dedicate this fight to all the fans who willed this fight to happen and, as always, to bring glory to the Philippines and my fellow Filipinos around the world."

Full details have not been announced, but there is expected to be a 60-40 revenue split with Mayweather earning at least $120 million and Pacquiao making $80 million.
Mayweather, 37, has a career record of 47-0 with 26 knockouts and last fought Marcos Maidana in September of 2013. Meanwhile, Pacquiao, 36, is 57-5-2 in his career with 38 wins by knockout. The southpaw's last fight came in November against Chris Algieri.

"I promised the fans we would get this done and we did," Mayweather said.

Source: CBS Sports

Read More